I am someone for whom "Where did I put my phone...?" is a daily occurrence. I’m a bit of a scatterbrain who often forgets where I’ve placed things—perhaps my brain capacity is lower than most.

Right at the start of the year, I committed a major blunder: I lost the memorial ring containing my late beloved cat's ashes inside my own home. This ordeal taught me just how much that ring had become an emotional crutch for me.

The memorial ring is gone from my left ring finger…!

It was one evening, just as the gentle atmosphere of the New Year was starting to fade. I looked at my hand as I was about to go to sleep and felt something was off. Wait… my cat’s memorial ring isn’t on my left ring finger.

That ring contains a piece of my late cat Gigi’s finger bone, and the design is full of "Gigi-ness." It fit my finger so well that I often didn't even notice I was wearing it.

Aware of my forgetfulness, I make it a rule to take the ring off only when bathing or doing my skincare routine, and I always make it a habit to put it back on as soon as I’m finished.

That’s why, when I noticed it was missing, I was relatively calm. I had an idea of where it might be.

"Right, time to go get Gigi." Still wrapped in my duvet, preparing to sleep, I slowly headed toward the places I thought it might be.

However, things took an unexpected turn... the ring wasn't in any of the places I’d guessed. I started to panic. "This is terrible... I’ve really messed up." I looked under the refrigerator and checked the gaps behind the furniture, searching everywhere for the ring.

Where is Gigi? If she’s somewhere cold, dirty, or dark, I have to save her quickly...! My anxiety grew. I searched every corner of the room, but the ring was nowhere to be found. I looked until dawn, but I couldn't find it.

I had to work the next day, so I went to bed, filled with self-loathing and restlessness. But I couldn't get the ring out of my head. I spent a miserable night dreaming of Gigi or dreaming that I had found the ring, only to wake up and feel crushed realizing it wasn't real.

Searching for the ring with a smartphone "metal detector app"!

After waking up, I moved the refrigerator—the place I suspected most—to see if the ring had rolled underneath. Unfortunately, all I found were the remains of toys the cats had been playing with, and to my surprise, an old USB drive I didn't recognize.

Maybe I accidentally threw it in the trash. Worried, I took out every piece of garbage to search through it, but no luck. Could it have fallen into the litter box and gotten scooped up? I even went as far as to sift through my cats' droppings.

My cats watched every move I made from behind, looking as if they wanted to say, "This is an invasion of privacy."

After searching everywhere I could think of, I still hadn't found it. But I couldn't give up, so I installed a metal detector app on my phone. The app would react to metal whenever I moved the phone around.

Ignoring my work, I paced around the room with my phone in hand, thoroughly searching every spot where the app would let out a "beep."

However, all I found was a "crumpled ball of aluminum foil" that my cats had been using as a toy. I was surprised they had hidden it there, but the free metal detector app wasn't very useful.

Even using "a cat's help" to search for the lost ring!

Once I realized the limits of the metal detector app, the next thing I tried was "a cat’s help." Perhaps when I had looked away, one of my cats had played with the ring. If that were the case, I needed to study how my cats played and how the ring might have rolled.

So, I placed a cheap ring in a spot where I usually put my ring and observed their behavior.

As it turned out, although they knocked the ring over, they didn't show much interest in it afterward. Based on this, I thought it was unlikely that they had played with the real ring and knocked it into some crevice. I stopped the experiment for the time being. I went to the washroom to open a drawer and change out of my sweat-soaked clothes.

Then, something completely unexpected happened. When I picked up some underwear, the memorial ring appeared from underneath. What...?! Why here...?! How did it get into the drawer...? I was so shocked that I kept retracing my actions from that day over and over, but how it ended up in that drawer remains a mystery to this day.

Thinking it was Gigi’s magic... is probably too much of a fantasy. I’m telling myself it must have gone: I put the ring on top of the drawer before my bath -> I opened the drawer after my bath to get clothes -> the ring accidentally fell into the drawer... that must have been how it happened.

By the way, needless to say, after I found the ring, I presented the cats with treats, apologizing, "I’m sorry for suspecting you!!!"

The "weight of the memorial ring" I learned after losing it

Losing a precious memorial ring inside one's own home is, fundamentally, something that should never happen. But through this ordeal, I learned something. It’s the fact that this ring had become an even greater emotional crutch than I had realized.

When I told my husband I had lost it, he said, "It’s expensive, so let’s find it." But when I heard those words, what welled up inside me was the feeling that "this isn’t a matter of money."

I spent a fair amount on it because I decided I would wear it for the rest of my life. But I didn't want to find it because it was expensive; I wanted to find it because it was painful to have even a single piece of Gigi’s bones missing.

You might think that's rich coming from the person who lost the ring, but I didn't want any part of her bones to be out there feeling lonely. I hated the idea of Gigi being somewhere that wasn't by my side.

Perhaps that’s why I cried so pathetically when I found it. What kind of tears were these? I didn't know... I was surprised by my own crying and just sobbed like a child.

I truly realized that because I have this memorial ring, I can think, "I'm going out with Gigi," and that’s what allows me to live—I keenly felt how much this ring had become my emotional anchor.

The wounds of pet loss never fully heal, but if you have something nearby that lets you feel the proof that your cat once lived, you can go on living even while carrying that pain. This ring incident taught me exactly that.

Gigi, I am so sorry. Whether you're angry at me or not, I would be more than happy to see you in my dreams.

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